Breathless
by heart11broken
Summary: "To borrow an old cliché, you seem to have a lot of unresolved feelings towards each other that you've buried for the sake of a half-hearted friendship, enacted in an ultimately fruitless effort to keep our circle of companionship on a functioning level." Future-fic. Lucaya.


**A/N: Enjoy!**

 _Summary: "To borrow an old cliché, you seem to have a lot of unresolved feelings towards each other that you've buried for the sake of a half-hearted friendship, enacted in an ultimately fruitless effort to keep our circle of companionship on a functioning level." Future-fic. Lucaya._

* * *

 _February 19_ _th_

 _T-minus 115 days_

"Look, I know it's really Ashley's day and we're just up there to be penguins, but pink ties? Really?" Adam sifts through the shades of pink offered in the bridal catalogue at the store, trying to match it to the color that Lucas' fiancée had handed him in a swatch that morning.

"See you're not being supportive, that's why Zay is my best man," Lucas says absentmindedly, holding two slightly different white ties against the gray of his chosen suit jacket.

Adam rolls his eyes at him, before glancing around for the woman who's been assigned to help them in what Lucas feels is an impossible task. "Yeah, what is it with your old friends? Zay I get, he's your oldest friend in the world, but I'm surprised that you invited those other guys. You barely mention them anymore."

"They're still important to me," Lucas pauses while adjusting his chosen shade of cream necktie, "and I do see them every once in a while, just not as much as I used to. Besides, it's not anyone's fault or anything, I just don't live near them anymore."

"Well what about the tiny one? The one that broke your heart right before I met you? You didn't invite Maya, right? Ashley is cool and everything, but I can't see her…" Adam pauses at the look on Lucas' face. "You invited your ex-girlfriend?!"

"She's still one of my best friends, and she was before we ever got together." Lucas replies weakly. "Ashley is cool with it."

"Well damn brother, you're putting Ashley through this too? Isn't this like getting married 101? The exes don't get invited?"

"She invited Grayson! I'm not the only one with an ex coming to the wedding!" Lucas decides he doesn't like the suit with the extra buttons and discards it, pulling on a simpler version and inspecting himself in the mirror.

Adam shakes his head. "That's different, she broke up with Grayson, not the other way around, and they dated way less time than you two did. Maya is different. Normal people don't stay friends with their beautiful spitfire exes after they tear out their heart and stomp all over it."

Lucas sighs deeply, turning away from the mirror and putting a hand on his roommate's shoulder. "Look. Adam. Not that it matters, but Maya and I were right to break up when we did, she just realized it before I did. And Ashley really is fine with it, she even met Maya a few times. They aren't thrilled with each other, but they get along."

Adam raises an eyebrow back at him. "You're sure it doesn't mean anything? Everything that ever happened between the two of you, you're just over that? You're sure you're ready to get married?"

Lucas pauses, pushing away old memories from his high school days and thinking firmly about the girl with the honey-auburn hair that will be waiting at the end of the aisle for him in a few short months.

"I'm sure."

* * *

 _April 17_ _th_

 _T-minus 58 days_

"Have you checked your mail yet today?" Riley's nervous. She's using her _don't provoke Maya_ voice, which Maya distinctly remembers from the end of high school and hasn't heard since the third year of undergrad when the pair of them drove to Atlantic City after Maya turned 21 and Riley spent the rest of the night babysitting both she and Smackle. Maya distinctly remembers hearing it after her third shot of tequila that night, when she started dancing with a tall stranger and tried to give her iPhone to another so she could climb onto the bar.

Maya sighs into her phone. "Yeah, I got it." The fancy cream envelope had been sitting on top of a bunch of ads that got stuck into her mailbox every week. It was addressed to a _Ms. Maya Hart Hunter_ , and held a return address from somewhere in Georgia. She knew what it was, had known since way back in September when she'd seen an engagement announcement on her Facebook page and, a few days later, received a text message that said simply; _I guess you heard. What do you think?_

"So what do you think?" Riley's response echoed the words she'd read months before, and even all this time later, Maya had no answer.

"God, Riles, I have no idea." Maya speaks honestly and softly. She's been pacing around her studio apartment in Rhode Island, staring at her old paintings adorned on her walls and the quilt she made with Riley her senior year of high school thrown over her favorite red chair. "I mean it's Lucas. How am I supposed to feel about him getting married?"

"You would have a right to be upset. You two were each other's first time…first love…first everything, really."

"Technically you were his first kiss," Maya says, teasing. She can hear Riley as she snorts. "Look, I know we meant a lot to each other at one point in our lives, but we were stupid teenagers. We loved each other because it was convenient. We weren't right for each other, that's why it fell apart the second we left for college."

Riley's sitting on the couch in her parents' new brookstone, watching Auggie help Katy and Shawn's seven-year-old son Elliot with multiplication tables. She's been on her feet all day at the office, helping the repugnant Mr. Peterson in hopes that one day, _one day,_ he might take a look at something she's written. She's got blisters and more blisters from her cute-but-not-practical pointy blue heels, and so many bad manuscripts to go through she could build a fort out of them. "As long as you're sure. Ashley seems sweet enough."

Maya snorts. "From the, what is it, two times we've met her? Sure. She seems great."

"Well it's not exactly her fault we haven't seen much of her, she's from Atlanta and she lives in Virginia."

"And he lives in Ithaca. Still don't understand how that relationship works." Maya glances over at the still life she's been working on for days, frustrated with the way her colors are blending together.

"Peaches, you need to tell me if you're upset. It's harder to tell if I'm not with you."

She groans then. "I'm fine, I promise."

* * *

 _May 3_ _rd_

 _T-minus 42 days_

"I still can't believe out of all of us, Charlie Gardner was the first to get married," Zay says, glancing at the couple swaying in front of their table.

"Only by a little," Lucas points out to him. "I only have like five weeks left."

"Still," Zay says, sounding astonished. "What did the man have? I've been trying this whole dating thing for almost ten years and I still haven't got it figured out."

"You're fine, Babineaux, and you know it," Smackle says, winking at him. "Now why don't we show small-town Massachusetts what dancing's all about." She gets up and pulls Zay out of his seat, joining the crowd right at the beginning of a more up-tempo song.

The rest of the group watch them from afar; they're trying and failing to do some kind of tango-foxtrot hybrid. Zay has his hand firmly on Smackle's bare upper back, and their opposite hands are firmly clasped together as they try to suppress giggles. "Are they _ever_ going to get past this ridiculous flirting stage and actually date?" Farkle asks, shaking his head.

"If Smackle has anything to say about it," Maya answers for him. "She's about to give up. The man moves at the pace of diseased snail."

"When did that even become a possibility? Last I knew Smackle was dating some guy from her med school," Lucas questions, confused.

"Oh she got over that fast. Apparently he talked way too much about an ex."

"And Zay was very relieved, whether he'd admit it or not." Riley adds. "But that was what, six months ago?" Farkle nods.

Lucas sighs. "I'm so out of the loop. I've just been busy, with vet school four hours from New York and flying down to visit Ash all the time."

They all sigh dramatically, and Farkle's the first one to speak. "And you don't have time for your friends anymore," he whines exaggeratedly. "Fortunately, I elected to go to college a few subway stops from my apartment. As it turns out, I have been a part of far too many girls' nights in the last few years that I would much rather not remember."

"Oh come on Farkle, you and I both know that you loved your face masks," Riley coos at him. Farkle pretends to pout. "Will a drink make you feel better?"

"No, but two might," Farkle grins, and the two of them leave Maya and Lucas alone at the table.

"So what about you, Hunter, is there anything I should know?" Lucas teases her.

"I wouldn't be able to narrow it down to a list," Maya answers playfully, and he grins. "Nah, work's been keeping me pretty busy so I haven't had much time to spend in the love department."

"You still working at that coffee shop? That place was awesome."

"Yeah, between that and my part-time that I'm still hoping becomes full time doing landscapes for a studio out of Providence, I haven't had much time to spend on the opposite sex."

"And are you happy?" She studies him for a moment. Lucas has aged at least a decade in the past few years, and there are dark circles under his eyes that show how hard he's worked during each of them. Still, the years have done him well, and though he's filled out and his jaw has the hint of stubble that it had lacked when they were still teenagers. There are two features though, that have stood the test of time, and though Maya could never admit it to him or herself, they're her favorites. His ocean colored eyes have always made her feel like she's simultaneously floating and drowning, and his sweet smile that used to make her feel weak in the knees when he shot it at her from across the room after a particularly well-timed retort. "Maya?"

She snaps out of her reverie. "Am I happy?" He tilts his head forward. "I work sixty hours a week. I serve coffee to rich hipsters who demand to see the fair trade signs on the coffee bags we use. I live in a shoebox apartment where my bathroom is also my laundry room, I can't remember my last date and I spend all of my free time painting things I see around me, and you know what? I'm so happy. Even if all those other things were as bad as I just made them sound, it would be okay because painting every day makes everything worth it."

His dimples greet her again as he smiles widely. "I'm so happy for you." Riley and Farkle join them again, passing them each a glass of champagne. Maya sips gratefully, looking out in time to see Charlie and his new bride approach the table.

"Thanks for coming, you guys," Charlie greets them, holding his wife's hand. "I know you're all busy, so we really appreciate it. This has just been the best day."

Riley and Maya smile at him. "Congratulations, the ceremony was absolutely beautiful."

"Almost as beautiful as the open bar," Lucas adds, and the group laughs.

"Hey, congrats to you too, Charlie was telling me that we're going to your wedding next month?" Charlie's wife inquires.

"Good luck, man, I know everyone's biased but I don't know how you could top a day like today," Charlie jokes. Lucas smiles again, but it's the tight smile that Maya knows means he would really like to punch something and she notices his knuckles turning white as he grips his champagne flute. She reaches over under the table and squeezes his knee gently, and he jumps out of his seat.

"We'll do our best," Lucas manages to squeeze out, and as the bride and groom walk away, he notices stares from the other three at the table. "What?" He asks innocently.

* * *

 _May 17_ _th_

 _T-minus 28 days_

She sees him again two weeks later, this time in Rhode Island. After the wedding he'd gone into finals mode for vet school, but they'd caught up enough for him to find out that she had an art show the day after his last exam and that none of their other friends could make it. It's one of his last free days before wedding preparation takes over, and he insists on making up for all the shows he's missed in the time since high school graduation.

He strolls into the gallery close to the end of the show, when the crowd has died down and a few bids have been made on her work. She's feeling confident about the style she's adopted for the set on display, which she affectionately refers to as an "Impressionist on crack", and fortunately, the buyers seem to feel the same way.

Everything is going well, so it's weird for her to feel something like relief when Lucas comes in at half past eight. His eyes grow wide at everything he sees, both her work and those of others, and she smirks a little to herself when she sees a couple of her younger coworkers – two female and one male- most decidedly checking out Lucas' ass as he walks past them. "Hunter," he greets her.

"Hop-a-long," she greets back, and he winks at her. "I can't believe you're actually in Rhode Island. I've been here almost five full years and you've never made it here."

"I know, I know, I'm the worst," he answers dejectedly. "How about I buy you dinner after this to make it up to you?"

Maya's eyebrows dip, confused. "And what will Ashley think?"

"She knows I'm here. I told her I owed you by about a thousand." He starts to look over her shoulder at the paintings hanging behind her. "These are incredible, Maya. Are these abstract? They almost look more Impressionist to me, I like the shading."

Maya bites her lip to keep from grinning, remembering the countless hours she'd spent in late high school dragging him from art museum to art museum and how she'd grilled him on different painters and art periods so that he'd be able to keep up with her when she went off on excited rants about her favorite works. She had a similar working knowledge about the basics of running a farm now, after spending many Texas visits greeting animals and running up and down rows of cotton. "I'm planning to single-handedly bring Impressionism back."

He chuckles, dimples appearing beneath a layer of scruff that has appeared since she last saw him. "Of course you are."

Two hours later, they've packed up what's left of her display, dropped it off at her studio and stopped for a bite to eat at Maya's favorite burger place, a restaurant she only favors because of what they famously call the "Mex-America Taco Burger". Lucas teases her about how unhealthy the food has to be before ordering a deluxe size for himself, finishing his off before she's made it to the second half of her own meal, too eager telling him about her half-brother Elliot and how he's learning how to ride a bike properly. After she finally finishes her meal, she takes him to the park across the street and they take off down its elegant walking path.

"I think my first semester of college I must have come to this park every other day. Every day during warm months. I had to escape the yelling." She points to her favorite spot underneath an old willow tree, close to a low-flowing creek.

"Wait, I remember. It was that crazy roommate you had, what was her name? Tina? Sabrina?"

"Katrina," Maya corrects, "and she deserved to be named after a hurricane. I think she and her boyfriend must have broken up and gotten back together fifteen times just in that first four months. It was awful. And then when they finally did break up, she started keeping alcohol in the room and we almost got busted with it. Of course by that point, I wanted that vodka just as badly as she did."

Lucas sighs, looking down at his moving feet. "Yeah, I remember those days, too. At one point one of my baseball coaches had to come talk to me because my teammates were so worried about me. I woke up that morning hungover in some stranger's house with my face in some leftover pizza. Honestly Maya, I don't know that I've ever felt so low."

"I'm sorry for that," Maya says softly. "As much as we ribbed each other back then, I never wanted to hurt you. As nuts as it sounds, I was just trying to protect you." She realizes then that they've slowed down. She can't find it in herself to mind.

"Maya," he says firmly, stopping to look her in the eyes. "You were right to break us up back then. We were a mess. We missed each other and we got mad at each other for missing each other and we loved each other too much to admit that we needed time to become our own person."

"Well, I think it's safe to say that we managed to do that," she says with a snort, elbowing him a little in the sides. "I don't know if I really got a chance to say it last year, but congratulations on vet school. We were all very proud of you."

"I can't even start with you. I mean it, Maya, it's so great to see your art up on display like that. Just like you always dreamed."

"Yeah, we've come pretty far since we were 18," she agrees, voice trailing off as she notices the frown on his face.

He nods anyway. "What actually happened between us all that time ago?" At her inquisitive look, he continues. "I mean, I know what happened at the end. I've just been thinking a lot about that, with committing to Ashley for the rest of my life. You two are really the only people I've ever been with seriously. How did we end up screwing it up so bad?"

She thinks for a moment, looking at the flowers blooming on the trees draped across the sidewalk. They turn a corner to find a bench at the edge of the park, simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief and falling down on it. In the process, he ends up halfway on top of her, and he starts laughing at her flailing arms underneath him before sliding off so she can catch her breath again. "If I'm being completely honest," she says slowly, considering each word, "we jumped into that relationship too fast. We were kids, Lucas, just sixteen. We were terrified Riley was going to hate us for dating and when she didn't we were so happy that we said 'I love you' to each other, even though we'd only been a couple for a week. We slept together after a month. Every day felt like this huge roller coaster of emotions, and in a way high school is supposed to feel like that. I had always been afraid of feelings, and letting good things happen, but with you it was okay because we took every day as it came as a team, like we were going on an adventure. And when we went to separate colleges, we realized that we had been riding that roller coaster of life together for so long that we had forgotten how to ride it alone. That thought scared the hell out of me."

He studies her face. She doesn't have any paint in her hair, which is probably exclusively due to the show she's just finished; her hair is windswept from the walk and is starting to curl at the bottom. She has stuff on her face he's never seen before that bring out her eyes, and he realizes for the first time that Maya is not the teenager that owned his heart but a beautiful woman. She stares back at him, eyes as fiery as the day she fell into his lap on the subway and he can't find the words to respond to her.

For a moment, he could kiss her.

She misunderstands his silence. "Maybe we should have just stayed friends back then, and avoided the whole mess. Sometimes I feel like I took something from Ashley."

His mouth drops, alarmed, and he jumps off the bench. "Don't say that Maya. Don't degrade our relationship like that."

She shakes her head, standing up and trying to look him in the eye. When she fails, she steps on the bench and turns to face him. "You listen here, Sundance. The day we broke up was one of the worst days of my life, and I have some strong competition with my background. I wasn't right for a year. Ever since then, you and I haven't been the same. We're friends, I know, and you and I are both busy with our own lives, I know, and that's why we broke up. But you would be lying if you said there hasn't been a fence we keep between us because we got so damn hurt. And you're telling me you don't wish we could have just preserved our friendship? Kept our friends from having to unofficially choose sides that first year after the split? It's still affecting our friend group and you know it."

"And I wouldn't trade a day of it and neither would Zay or Farkle or Riley or anybody," he answers loudly, voice shaking slightly. "What do you mean, 'stayed friends'? We were never friends to begin with, we had something between us from the day we met and you know it; it just took us four years to admit it to ourselves and to get all the other stuff out of the way. Maya I got through my fear of relationships and of my parents' shitty relationship because you helped me through it. If it hadn't been for that, there would be no Ashley. No matter how low the lows were, and trust me, I know how low I got at the end," he rants, "I would not trade one iota of our relationship for anything else, not that stupid first kiss under the bleachers or the day we skipped class to go skiing and got caught by Mr. Matthews or the day we screamed at each other from two states away from little corners of our dorms. Every moment of relationship made me into the man I am today."

He's angry with her, and she feels something stirring inside her she hasn't dealt with in a long time. As she feels herself start to lose her grip on her emotions, Lucas' fiancée flashes through her mind and she takes a deep breath, getting off the bench and taking a few steps backward. He realizes what she's doing, and sits down again, burying his head in his hands. "I'm sorry," he says after a few minutes, face still covered. "Wedding planning is more stressful and emotional than I thought it would be, and it's hard to let it out sometimes." He looks up at her, still several steps away from him and looking more than a little concerned. "God, Maya, I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to proposition you or anything like that."

"But there will always be something there waiting for us, won't there?" Maya says, voice so low it's almost a whisper. He squeezes his eyes shut in agreeance. "Which is why we haven't been able to be actual friends. Why as much as we try to fool ourselves with our texts and emails, we'll probably never be able to be actual friends." He gazes at her with sad eyes before nodding, head drooping in defeat.

He walks her back to her apartment, silent the whole time. After she bids him good night, Maya finds herself wearing an old high school t-shirt of his and covered in paint, canvas filled with reds and yellows and, at the top, the dark blue of the night sky beginning to creep through. She thinks it sort of looks like a broken, frozen sunset, stuck at its current position above the earth for an unexplainable length of time. She's just not sure what or who is keeping the sun from lowering any further.

* * *

 _May 23_ _rd_

 _T-minus 22 days_

"Riles, no, please don't make me tell you this story again," Maya begs, carrying an uncorked bottle of wine from one room into the other. She pours dark liquid into the three wine glasses on the coffee table, leaving the open bottle and taking a deep swig from her own glass.

"This is a very big deal, Maya! You and Lucas had a fight. A real fight. An 'I'm arguing because we have so much passion I can't stand it' fight. I knew you and Lucas still had something going on together!" Riley is positively giddy, bouncing around her living room and sloshing the wine in her glass, making Smackle look nervous.

"I have to agree with her Maya," Smackle says, and Maya groans. "To borrow an old cliché, you seem to have a lot of unresolved feelings towards each other that you've buried for the sake of a half-hearted friendship, enacted in an ultimately fruitless effort to keep our circle of companionship on a functioning level."

"Even if that was true," Maya retorts, "what does it matter? He's at his bachelor party. Zay and Farkle are with him at his bachelor party. He's getting married in three weeks. 'And they lived happily ever after, the end'. There's no more to say about it." She plops her feet on Riley's coffee table, nearly knocking over the wine bottle.

"If that was true," Riley responds eagerly, "he would have a ring on his finger. He does not. And Ashley is nice and all, but if he has feelings left for you aren't we really saving her from making a big mistake?" At Maya's expression, she continues. "Come on Maya, are you really going to tell me that you don't have feelings for him? I know it's been a few years but come on. You haven't actually dated someone since you two broke up when you were still eighteen."

"I've dated!" Maya exclaims.

"Dated, yes, but if my memory serves me correctly, and it always does, none of the suitors have lasted more than a preliminary four to eight week period. At least not since we all began college." Smackle is trying to be helpful, but serves only to irritate Maya further.

"And what about you, Smackle? Why aren't we asking you about whatever happened between you and Zay at the wedding a couple weeks ago? Don't think we didn't notice you two headed off in the same direction when we got to our hotel at the end of the night." Smackle blushes furiously.

Riley is still focused on her most immediate concern. "Maya, just tell me this. If nothing else, you can admit to me that there isn't a man you've loved more than you loved him, when you did."

"I guess that's true," Maya admits, swirling what's left of the liquid in her glass. She pretends to pick lint off of her pajama pants.

"Why don't you want to have that again? Why don't you want Lucas back?"

"We're not the same people we used to be, Riles. I don't even know what dating him at 23 would be like, if we would click. I don't even know exactly where he lives. You could make an argument that I don't even really know Lucas anymore, aside from the few times he does get to catch up once a month or every other month."

"And you're not attracted to him anymore?" Riley demands.

"I didn't say that necessarily…"

"You don't think being a vet is a good profession?"

"Of course it's a great profession, I just…"

"You don't think about him when you see your future anymore?"

Maya is silent. She breathes out deeply before looking at Riley with wide eyes, staring as though she's just witnessed an earthquake, and in that moment, Riley sees the weight of half of a decade begin to lift off her shoulders, and for a moment she is eighteen years old again, naïve and carefree and so in love she makes the birds jealous. Riley is quiet too, allowing her best friend time to collect her thoughts, and after a minute, Maya finally speaks. "Of course I do."

It's her first time addressing her feelings in so long that the words feel funny coming off her lips, but she knows all the same that they're true and she has to swallow before she can finish. "When I think about…I think about my family in the future and my job and talking to someone at the end of the day and," she admits in a murmur. "It's him Riles, it's always him. Coming home from work. Wearing a tuxedo for a fancy veterinary ball. God, I picture my kids looking at me and they're looking at me with my hair and his eyes."

"So peaches," Riley says gently, "why don't you do something about it?"

Maya is thoughtful again, and her friends give her the chance to collect herself before thinking. She leans her head to the side and purses her lips, giving a sad smile to Riley. "It's not that I don't want to have that kind of love again. I loved him, Riley. I loved him more than I knew how to handle and it ended up being our undoing back then. I believe it could work now, I do. But it's not up to me. He's the one getting married. I'm not the kind of girl who breaks up a wedding for some man who doesn't want me. If he decides I'm the one he wants to be with, he has to decide. I'm not going to run to him and fall over at his feet. I won't do it."

"And if he doesn't? Maya, do you know what happens if he doesn't realize it's up to him to decide?"

Maya nods, setting her glass down and leaning her head back against the couch. "If he doesn't…..here comes the bride."

* * *

 _June 11_ _th_

 _T-minus 3 days_

Georgia is hot in June. That's the first thing Lucas thinks about when he gets off the plane, and though the air reminds him strikingly of his childhood in Texas, the crowded city around him proves that he's a long way from the farm. He's out of practice with that much heat, though, and after fifteen minutes walking around trying to find Ashley's car, he's sweating profusely.

An hour later, they're already at work, busily setting up arrangements on tables at their chosen reception hall. It's a beautiful room, with long windows everywhere that can open at night to let cooler air in. Ashley's taught him the perfect way to set up each individual arrangement, but he fails miserably anyway. Frustrated, he sets them aside and starts setting up more tables, stealing looks over at the ornately decorated head table where they will be seated after their wedding.

"By the way, Grayson and Kari Jo can't come," Ashley tells him with a frown. "I forgot to tell the caterers."

"That sucks. Why not?" Lucas asks her, kneeling on the ground to pull out the legs of the wooden tables. At the look on her face, Lucas lowers the table to the ground and rushes over to her, pulling her to him and hugging her tightly. "Hey it's going to be okay," he says in her hair. She sniffles into her hair, and when he loosens his grip he realizes that she's crying. He grips her hand tightly, and they walk out of the large hall together, sitting down on a bench in a quiet hallway between the kitchen and the hall.

"I just wanted everything to be perfect," Ashley mumbles. "I want everything to be perfect and I want everyone important to me to be there and now they can't be."

Lucas gives her a small smile, wiping away the tears from her face and rubbing her back at the same time. "You know it's okay for you to want Grayson to be there, right? I know he's important to you."

"Am I a terrible person?" Ashley asks fearfully. "It's just…If it weren't for Grayson convincing me to go to school with him up north, you and I would never have met."

"Of course it's okay," Lucas insists. "I mean, I invited Maya and she's coming with my New York friends. Just because they are our exes doesn't mean they can't also be good friends of ours that we want there when we get married."

"You're right. They matter. It's okay that they matter." Ashley stands up, wiping underneath her eyes where her makeup has smudged. "You're really good to me, you know that?"

Lucas grins at her, but as she walks away, he remembers the tight handshake Grayson had given him when they told him they would be getting married. He remembers the fake smile on his face, and the radio silence he'd gotten from Maya when she found out a week later.

He starts to sweat for a different reason.

* * *

 _June 14_ _th_

 _The Point of No Return_

Lucas is running.

It's an hour and a half before his wedding is supposed to start and he's wearing his dress shoes and the bottom half of his tux with his specifically chosen white button down shirt. But Lucas is not worried about his clothes, or the fact that he's supposed to be getting married and his groomsmen are probably wondering where he has gone off to. He's not worried about that at all.

He reaches the specifically chosen and reserved four-star hotel half a mile from their wedding venue, and continues running as he enters the building and searches for the front desk. "Excuse me," he asks the kind looking middle aged woman at the computer, "Can you tell me what room someone is in?"

Maya is seven floors above him, taking her turn in the bathroom as she finishes curling her hair and starts dabbing foundation onto her cheeks. Riley is out in the main part of the hotel room, using the floor length mirror, and Smackle is sitting on the floor beneath Riley, trying to put her own makeup on and admire Riley's skill at the same time. Farkle is laying on Riley's bed in his suit, holding his phone above his face playing some random game that Maya doesn't want to understand.

She's just finished her foundation when there's a knock on the door. Riley walks towards the door as Maya rummages through her bag, looking for eye shadow. She's just pulled out her favorite shade when she hears Riley gasp. "What is it Riles?" She asks, rubbing her short brush through the color.

Riley steps aside and suddenly Lucas is in the doorway of the bathroom. Maya drops her brush.

"Maya," he pants. "I need to talk to you."

"About what?" She asks innocently. It's the first time she's seen or heard from him since he came to her art show in Rhode Island a month ago, and she's more than a little upset about it.

"About you and me." He hears three gasps behind him, and he turns to face his old friends. "Could you guys give us the room for just a few minutes?" Smackle, Riley and Farkle quickly agree and rush out of the room. Maya decides to ignore him, picking up her brush and turning to face the mirror again. "Maya. We need to talk about this."

"Friar I don't know what you're talking about. There is no you and me. There hasn't been in a long time."

"Shortstack," he says affectionately, moving to stand behind her and looking at her in the mirror. "I need you to be honest with me."

"Why do you need anything from me? You have a fiancée. In two hours she's going to be your wife. Where is she right now?"

"She's at her ex-boyfriend's house, doing the same thing I'm doing."

"And what exactly are you doing, Ranger Rick?" She hasn't used that nickname in years, and for some reason, he's delighted.

He looks at her reflection dangerously, leaning over and grazing his nose over her bare shoulder. Maya hates herself for the way the hairs on her shoulder rise at his touch, and the way her body responds to the stubble that he's left on his chin. For a moment, she's breathless, and he notices. "You've got goosebumps, Hunter."

"So? What does that prove? That doesn't mean that you and I should be together," Maya is growing irritated, and she starts applying her mascara with ferocity.

"Maya," he says quietly. He slides an arm around her waist, trying to get her to turn around. "Maya, why won't you look at me?"

She slams her hands on the bathroom counter, squeezing them on the marble tightly. Her eyes squeeze shut. "If I look at you, Lucas, I'm afraid of what will happen."

"Okay," he says, giving her reflection a half smile. "Then I'll just look at you through there. Here's what I have to say. An hour ago, my fiancée and I realized that if we were going to get married, there were feelings that we both had for other people that we needed to sort out. And if we couldn't, we couldn't get married. And so I'm here, Maya Hunter, because before I get married, I need to know if you have any of those feelings left too. Because if you do, I cannot in good conscience marry her."

Maya sniffs loudly and violently, and Lucas rubs her shoulder. "Why are you so afraid of this? Is it what happened before? I know who I am now, and you know who you are now. I'm almost a veterinarian and you're the most amazing artist I've ever seen. We know who we are now and we can help each other in being those people. We aren't teenagers anymore, I know it's been forever since we were able to spend any real time together but God, Maya, one night spent with you in a park and I know that nothing has changed."

There's a tear rolling down Maya's cheek as she turns around slowly, and Lucas' stomach clenches like nothing he's ever felt in his life. "If I tell you how I feel, you know there's no going back. We can never be friends again."

He slides a finger through her hair, brushing it away from her face. "You were right at the park, Maya. I don't think we were ever really been just friends in the first place, but we haven't been friends since we broke up, either. We've been lying to ourselves for so, so long, and I can't do it anymore." She shuts her eyes again, and he continues to run his fingers through her hair, adoring the freckles on her face and the curl in her hair and even the tiny smudge of mascara she's accidentally left just beneath her right eyebrow.

"I love you, Lucas," she says finally, so tenderly that he can barely hear her. "I've loved you for so long I don't remember what it's like not to love you and I never, ever stopped. When we broke up back then, it was never about not loving you, it was about needing to love myself. But all through it, I love you."

He lifts her into the air, spinning her and holding her tightly against him. "I'm never going back, Maya, it's you. It's always been you. I love you."

He kisses her then, the weight of five years lifting off of them as their mouths find their home again. Their hands run along each other eagerly, reconnecting as though it's been five centuries, five centuries that were far too long. After a moment, Lucas feels his phone buzzing in his pocket, lowering her to the ground and resting his forehead against hers as he pulls it out.

It's from Ashley. It says _I hope you find your home. I know I just found mine._

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 ** _A/N: Review, Review, Review! Thanks for reading._**


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